


My way home

by GwenChan



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst with a Happy Ending, Falling In Love, Historical Inaccuracy, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kievan Rus - Freeform, Long-Haired Victor Nikiforov, M/M, Mongolia, Non-Sexual Slavery, Role Reversal, Slavery, mention of murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 02:20:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21028658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwenChan/pseuds/GwenChan
Summary: Victor's life ended when Tartars raided his village and enslaved the few survivors, forcing them thousand of miles from home. A kind man at the market could give him new hope.





	My way home

The sword metal shone, cold in Victor's hand, so harsh and different from the mellow reflections of gold when still liquid poured into the stamp. Victor had never liked swords, not even when his father forged them with his able hands. Watching his new creation still reddish from the fire, he could only shiver with disgust. He saw blood on every new blade he created. Enemy blood. Family blood.  
His mother's. Old Lilia's. Mila's.

The first time he had killed a man, he vomited all over himself.

It had been miles ago when the whispers the Tartars’ yoke could be softened for valuable craftsmanship still sounded like a fairytale only others could live.

Victor's town hadn't bowed its head, no matter the warnings and, as a result, only four people had departed alive. Then Yuri had tried to escape, at night, stealing a horse which instead had only led him to his end.

Yakov's leg had gone into gangrene in the long, winter march and Victor had watched his former teacher being slaughtered for an act he supposed to be of mercy.  
Georgi took an arrow in his throat at the next siege.

Now their ghosts visited him at night, the entire village memory heavy on his shoulder. For them, he had vowed to survive.

A sudden jolt of pain in his shoulder brought him back to the reality of a small forge in the chaos of the city. He set the new sword aside, its curved shape no more a novelty, to stretch both arms above his head. His whole spine exploded in a symphony of pops.

Or it was something else, coming from outside if years of hammering the metal hadn't yet ruined Victor's ears. Sweeping the sweat from his forehead, he looked outside. A man was helping another to stand up, murmuring words Victor couldn't understand, though the first man's soft, encouraging smile was enough to discern their intended meaning.  
The second man first nodded - supposedly to a question on his well being - and patted his hips and a shadow fell on his face

It wasn't difficult to reconstruct what had happened. The second man must have been one of the several victims of the thieves who infested the roads.  
When he worked looking outside, there wasn't day Victor didn't see the small and skilled hands of a swift kid taking someone's full pouch.  
Most of the time, the victim didn't notice it until too late.

Before Victor could realise it, the first man moved right toward him, his face now well visible. But instead of the usual distaste, Victor read on every local who noticed his Western features, the first man's expression had more the soft aura of intense interest and sincere curiosity.

Victor’s mouth went dry. What? No, he hadn't seen the thief. He was working in the back room.  
Was his friend alright, he asked in return, his Chinese a cacophony compared to the other's musical voice. Yes. Well, it was nice.  
The first man smiled his thanks and goodbye and Victor found himself following him with his gaze until he and his friend disappeared at the first turn.

***

Sometimes Victor dreamt. Most of the time he was too tired even for that, muscles aching with lactic acid and eyes burning from the fire. He dreamt of walking, feet plunging in the swamp, a rope around his wrists. When they camped, the captives were never the same faces as the time before. Some had still a glimpse of loathing in their eyes, the same he saw in Yuri's before his head was exposed on a spear as a warning for all captives. He was only fifteen. God knew if Victor had tried to stop him.

He couldn't even bury the body and ravens had eaten Yuri's eyes. Now those ravens tormented his sleep.

Jolting awake from the old nightmare left him breathless, chest heavy with guilt no cry or forgiveness could melt. In the darkness he had the impression to feel a playful tongue licking his face, to hear a little whine and nails clicking against the pavement. How silly. Makkachin burned along with all the others.

In those moments, only focusing on the delicate art of goldsmith could force Victor's mind away from the past. He lit what was left of a candle, its flame flickering in the darkness. The necklace he was working on shone in the dim light, its intertwined golden threats refracting all over the room wall. Victor brought it closer to his face to study for possible imperfections before adding the little gems he could obtain, courtesy of an Italian merchant.

Michele Crispino was grumpy and overall at all a pleasant company, but he provided the little gold and silver, the few pearls and gems, Victor could use for his creations.  
He had carved a ring for the khan, a birthday homage, but his work as a blacksmith was deemed more useful than a goldsmith. His master had since then forbade any jewellery making. Not that Victor had ever been good in following directions.

Once finished the pendant would act as payment for Crispino. Victor's best creations, however, were not for sale but kept hidden in a secret compartment in the wall, memories whispered on the wind; twirlings earrings, a circlet, rings so small they could fit only on a toddler's finger.

***

The first day of the month was market-day, colourful stands filling the roads and the vendors cries echoing in the air. It reminded Victor's of the big fair in Novgorod once a year.

Victor's displayed his products in the sunny weather, bolt cutters and nails, horseshoes tingling above his head.  
On his right, a stand selling simple pottery, on his left, wooden toys for children. On the other side of the street, someone was selling honey pastries and sweet bread. Victor's stomach gurgled.

"How much for that knife?"

Of all people crowding the market, elbowing their way toward the stand of their interest, the last person Victor would imagine to find was the (stranger whose friend had been robbed outside the forge some days before.  
The central government collected directly all the forged sword, yet it tolerated the selling of smaller blades.  
Victor glanced at the dagger the stranger was examining, too big and heavy for his hand.  
"I would suggest buying something smaller," he smiled his best vending grin. "And lighter. How experienced are you with this kind of weapon?"

The stranger leaned over and, squinting a bit, looked at him with the same interested gaze of the first time. Something in it sent shivers down Victor’s spine, making his palms sweaty as if he was still a kid peering toward the object of his childhood crush.

"Not much," the stranger eventually answered. "But ..." He didn't finish the sentence, his mouth left open on words he wouldn't say, his attention shifted back on a new knife.  
"But a rich man has to protect himself," Victor concluded for him, not caring of being too direct. From the stranger's exquisite clothes to his coiffed hair, little doubt was left about his fruitful economic condition.  
"What knife would you suggest?"

Oh. Victor studied the stranger from head to toe. He had strange hands, white, with well-done nails and strong in shape, as if hard work wasn't new to them.  
"This would be the best," he began, picking a simple knife from the ones exposed and offering it to the stranger. "But something smaller would be even better," he continued. The stranger rolled the blade from side to side, brow furrowed.  
"Something smaller, maybe."

"I could forge that knife. Thought specifically for you."

The offer exited Victor’s mouth before his brain had registered it, giving voice to desire unknown until formulated. It was a way to see the stranger again, his kind eyes and sweet voice.  
Surprise, wondering, and acceptance passed on the stranger's face, eventually setting in calm gaze whose softeners made Victor’s hands tremble.  
"How much would it be?"  
"Nothing you couldn't afford."

The stranger smiled again. "You treat your customers well ..."  
"Victor," Victor supplied, a name the other pronounced with all the accents on the wrong syllable, stretching the last consonant on an extra vowel.

"I am Yuuri,” the stranger said in reply.

Victor froze, hands in mid-air, one still holding a knife he must have taken before. The stranger - no, Yuuri - had dragged the “u”, they sound nothing like the Slavic from his past. Yet, the other Yuri’s twisted face flashed through his mind.

"Victor?"

He blinked the memory away, sending it back to the past where it belonged.  
"What?"  
"I was asking how long would it take," Yuuri repeated. How long? His father would forge a knife in less than a day of work, but Victor had never learnt his technique. He needed to feel his creations, immersing body and soul in the process. His master always lamented he was too slow. Yakov used to say the same.

"It will be ready for the next market"  
Yuuri nodded a kind of approval. "Next market. Good luck with your work."

Words coggled Victor's throat. He wished to reply with some witty comments, to brag saying he didn't need luck with his talent, to flash the smirk everybody loved at the village.  
"Thanks," was all he managed to say.

***

Victor put in the forgery of Yuuri's knife the same attention he dedicated to his jewels, and there wasn't a moment when the hammer hit the metal Yuuri's face and gestures weren’t clear in his memory.  
It would be a small knife, to be hidden in a sleeve, light and well balanced to be easy to use. At home, his father used to take measurements of his customers hands, saying a comfortable hilt was as important as a well-sharpened blade.

Eventually, his master noticed the work, as it was inevitable, and asked for explanations with that tone of his always in equilibrium between tolerance and punishment.  
This time the scale leaned toward the former. After all, a commission would only benefit the forge, though Victor had noticed money hadn't the same importance here than at home.

At a few days from the new market, he deemed the knife ready. Sweat beaded his brow and the braid he normally kept his hair in was messy as he carefully carved Yuuri's name on the blade, in the sign of ownership for excellence; on one side the Latin letters Yakov insisted he learnt during his younghood, and in the Cyrillic smelling of home, inventing a transliteration that didn't exist.

Victor polished the knife until it sparkled, a blade that for the first time didn’t cause him the nausea of memories. Instead, a little smile of expectations never left his lips, from preparing the baskets full of products for the market to the moment fatigue laid upon his eyes.

***

Victor was torn from his sleep so abruptly he thought to be back at war, the battlefield cries filling his ears. He tried to ask something, but tiredness had glued his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Before he could yet realize what was happening, a hand fisted around his loose braid and dragged him on the floor, pulling his hair so much Victor was forced to tilt his head back, sweaty throat exposed.  
A rain of gold showered before his eyes, little drops rattling against the pavement, accompanied by a storm of words he couldn't understand.

And for each word, the hardwood of a stick crashed against his back, biting the flesh through the light shirt he wore at sleep. Scattered all around him were his trinkets, his small creation, his pride and his ruin.  
Victor raised his arms crossed above his head and felt the iron of blood from his own teeth cutting his lips.  
Once, he would cry from the pain. He had cried rivers of tears during those first days of march,; had cried for mama, for Makkachin, almost dwelling in the pain of frozen tears shutting his eyes closed.  
He had cried until, Yakov’s corpse covered in snow had come to turn his grief into something darker and duller, the unsaid promise he would take care of Georgi and Yuri.

He had never been good with his promises.

A single thought came to fill the mind in which he searched asylum from his master anger: the market. His master knew too well the market was Victor's only simulacrum of freedom, and concessions were quick to be retired. The market meant a day without the roar of iron in his ears, the red of apples and silk instead of the orange of fire, where he could pretend the city wasn't that different from his village.  
Without the market, he wouldn't see Yuuri.

Some moments happened only to cut reality into a before and an after. When the alarm had been rung, uselessly, at the village. When he had forced himself to turn his back onto Yakov, onto Yuri.

The trail of blood from the master's head, the stick now in Victor's hand, the lifeless body on the floor, all added a new one to the collection. Victor let go of the stick, as an unnatural calm washed over him. A glassy wall had surged between him and the outside world. From this site, everything looked different.

An accident, he told himself, re-arranging the body to sustain his thesis, only an accident. The revived fire in the furnace engulfed the stick out of existence.  
The first time Victor killed a man, he vomited. Now, the fact barely touched him.

***

"It's so light."

His master dead body had been light.

Victor nodded at Yuuri's praise, and he supposed his stomach would've fluttered too if it hadn't been filled with worry. Not much for the risk of being discovered, but for not knowing what would have been of him. Some families passed slaves as part of their legacy, others sold them to other masters and both options were dark of doubts before Victor's eyes. From what he had seen, Mongols weren’t a slave-based society and no help was indispensable. To think they would keep him only for the forge was to jump into a pitch-dark well and hope to eventually reach the ground with all bones still intact. And the same went also for the other way round.

In his pockets, a different weight, his precious jewels.

"I am glad you like it. Is the grip comfortable?"

Yuuri tested the hilt, rolling his wrist from left to right. In doing so, his sleeves slid back, revealing a glimpse of pearly scars on the ivory skin. Victor startled. He knew those signs, he carried their twins on his own flesh: the sign of the slavery rope.  
No, it was impossible. And if it was, how?

"How much?" Yuuri’s voice cut through Victor's reflections like a knife in butter.  
"How much would you pay?" Victor replied, according to the market tradition where bargaining was part of the selling itself.  
"I am not informed on blades prices," Yuuri confessed, proceeding to guess a price ridiculously low. Someone else would be offended, Victor huffed: "You truly don't have any idea."

The sentence was out in the air before Victor could swallow it back. One of the other things Yakov chastised him for.

Yuuri, though, didn't seem offended. Quite the contrary, his shoulders sagged in silent admission.  
"Low, but not low enough," Victor added for his surprise. "For it's a gift."

Though he wouldn't be able to explain the reason, he felt a certain wrongness in treating Yuuri as all the other customers. What ridiculous thought! There was no link between them, never had been.  
"I insist."  
“It’s kind of you.”

Yuuri smiled, a soft, little smile and Victor would have done anything to see it again.

"Will I see you at the next market?" He asked with hope in his voice.  
Yuuri’s hesitation spoke louder than the words coming to destroy Victor's hopes and create new.  
"I am afraid not. We're leaving soon."  
We. Him and his friend, for sure.  
Oh. Victor may have or may have not expressed his dismay with a single sound, but Yuuri must interpret it as a need for explanation.  
"We are aiming to travel before winter came."

It was there a crazy idea carved his way into Victor's mind, a ticket to escape his current status. A tiny voice inside him advised against the plan, too risky and too selfish.  
"I carved your name in the blade," he said with the anticipating voice of kids waiting for praise. The first ball of the avalanche.  
"I had to guess a bit," he continued, brushing fingertips against each carved letters as he said it out loud. "Y-U-U-R-I"  
"It's so strange," Yuuri murmured. Without a further impromptu, he showed Victor the right ideograms to write that same name.

"There is still space for adding your name as it should be. A blade with the name of his owner belongs to him more than ..."  
Victor was babbling, using sentences as he would with grips, a way to not fall into the pit underneath his feet.  
"You could come to my forge later. I will add it."  
How strange to put his own destiny in the hand of someone else, a stranger despite the warm feeling that often had wrapped around Victor’s stomach in the past month.  
"I will."

The warm feelings returned full force, so strong it made Victor nauseous as it mixed with guilt and worry. He brought a hand to his chest, once Yuuri had turned his back on him, his whole being feeling so light and yet so heavy at the same time.

***

If Victor had ever had a talent for the art of deceit, now it was time to test it. As a captive, he wasn't supposed to have emotions - and if, they weren't to be taken into consideration - but his master's relatives seemed to appreciate the consternation twisting his face in learning the man's tragic fate

Standing in a corner, Victor prayed Mongols hadn't in use to kill their slaves to accompany the master in the afterlife.  
They spoke too fast for him to understand half of what they were saying, the master's old mother and another one Victor supposed was the master's son. He kept his head low. Soon Yuuri would arrive and ...

"Why hadn't you warned us?"  
The harshness made the fresh wounds on his back hitch. He lowered his shoulders.  
"It happened after I went to the market."

The man clicked his tongue in disapproval before returning to talk with his mother. A part of Victor wished the master's corpse wasn't still at a few metres from them.  
Still no knocking at the forge.

The chatting arrived like a buzzing at his ears, hinting at the next slave market, the great hunt, his worth. Victor dug nails into his palms as the time passed and outside the small window the sun lowered at the horizon.

At a certain point, he was dismissed, sent down at the workshop to earn his food and overall his right of being alive. For each time he raised an arm above his head as he worked, his back muscles stretched, sending a jolt of pain across his body.

When yet another sword was ready, hours later, the blade shining in all its coldness of an instrument of death reflected only the truth: Yuuri hadn't come.

Victor swallowed a gulp of saliva. His skin tickled. Your chance said the ghosts.

***

The night had the lingering light of a well-lit city, the moon cruel and high in the sky.

Victor had never believed his breath and steps could be so loud. Nor that roads could look so different in the moonlight than they looked under the sun. Not that he had often had the chance to tour the town.  
To remember where Crispino lived was already a miracle.  
No, a miracle had been the guards accepting his story of having been sent for an urgent commission.  
No, a miracle was Crispino knowing Yuuri’s current address.

With half his mind occupied by remembering the piece of info, half by repeating the excuse to give to whoever may stop him, and all his nerves on edge, Victor was still surprised he could put a foot after the other.

In battle, his heart had beaten less. Yuri's head judged him from the high of his dead eyes. He adjusted the hoodie on his head at a new turn of between houses, Yuuri's door closer at every metre. The heart kept pounding in his ears, deafening, his body tensed in the effort to not break into a run, all while his mind accumulated questions about the imminent future. Yuuri might not be home, might not open the door, might refuse any help.  
Victor’s fist brushed against the wood. The first knock echoed through the air and with it went Victor’s breath, trapped in seconds of waiting long as ages.  
“Victor? What is it at this hour?”

Yuuri was at home. Yuuri opened the door.

"Help me."

***

Victor remembered little of the moments after Yuuri had stepped aside to make him enter, accepting with such simple gesture all the risks and burden of helping a runaway slave.  
"I hoped you would buy me," Victor murmured, sounding capricious even to his own ears, at the end of a long explanation.  
Yuuri shook his head with gentleness. He moved closer. Victor flinched.  
"I would never buy another person."  
The scars around his wrists were clearly visible now, almost underlying his words.

A long, deep silence followed, during which Victor's gaze moved from the door, expecting it to burst open any time now, to Yuuri, whose not saying anything made the wait all the more excruciating.  
Nor his face gave away much of his own reflections.  
If Yuuri had been a captive, there was space to hope he would be moved to pity. Victor stared at the door until his eyes filled with tears. But solidarity was also a rare commodity when the price was death.

Yuuri tilted his head up, the movement so sudden in the still air it made Victor jump in his seat. He curled his hands in fists, as Yuuri opened his mouth to speak his sentence, feeling as if all his breath had been taken from his lungs.

Whatever Yuuri said, a door bursting open covered it, the sound of angry boots on the floor, and the confusing screaming of familiar voices. A pair of hands grabbed Victor by his braid. The scene from the morning, happening all over again. He pointed his feet against the ground. His eyes, when he managed to turn his head, screamed a silent plea.

A flickering of silver and the hold softened, enough for Victor to wiggle free. When he turned, Yuuri was pressing his blade against the master’s son’s throat, while pushing a knee right between his shoulders blade.  
Victor’s breathe got stuck even deeper in his throat. One thing was to help a slave escape, another was to kill a master in doing so. No Mongol male was helpless and often their women were as strong. If he couldn't’ divert his gaze, it would be only to see Yuuri been killed after a brief advantage.

Instead, Yuuri lowered the knife and stepped back. He had established his strength, no need to put himself in a more dangerous position.  
For a moment Victor feared kindness would be his end, but his action must have gained him enough respect.  
"Victor was here to finish a work I had commissioned," he spoke with a calm voice, sure of his being the host and everyone else guest in his own house. “And I also had to solve the late payment. Victor knows I’ll leave this city in a few days and wanted to assure I’ll keep my obligations.”

Victor’s gaze moved back on the master’s son, but his gestures and expression show little of his inner thoughts. He had accompanied all Yuuri’s story with little grunts, but if they were expressing doubts or concern was impossible for Victor to say. He knew the man too little, having met him before only thrice, each time for the great hunt.

“Victor told me about the tragedy that fell upon your family. Such a great man to die in his own home and not in battle. My deepest condolences,” Yuuri went on.  
“No man can control his fate,“ the master’s son replied, his tone distant, before snapping back from his seat, in a silent sign it was time for them to go. From the way he looked at Victor’s, it was clear he wouldn’t escape the consequences of his little escape, no matter the justification.  
Yuuri too must have noticed that stare, as he stood up with a fluid movement and with gentle words about being already late and his duty to offer their guests hospitality. The master’s son protest against accepting when his father corpse was at home, waiting to be properly mourned, could little against Yuuri’s smooth-talking and reasoning. His father was in good hands, he said, and how about he shared some stories of his past, before a boiling tea. Chatting together and reminiscing were part of mourning too.

There must be something more than leaves in the tea, for soon the master’s son’s mood lifted and his tongue melted, shiny fat tears appeared at the corner of his eyes - for each new sobs, Yuuri poured a new cup - and Victor learnt more about the family owning him in one night than in all the years he had worked for them.  
The passage to talking about his fate happened so smoothly it took Victor’s by surprise, hearing his name as he had dozed off snapping him back from his half-sleep. A few coins had appeared in Yuuri’s hands, rolling toward the table edge and being promptly caught before they could fall on the floor.  
“Or maybe I have to win him in battle,” Yuuri dragged slightly the sentence. It made Victor lower his head, cheeks heating for a sudden blush. Such an unexpected boldness. It reminded him of the stories of duels, knights, and princes his mama used to tell, the games in the courtyard with a stick in place of a sword.  
The battlefield couldn’t have been more different, and in all the towns they passed all princes were slaughtered without any pity or respect for the crown on their heads.  
“You wouldn’t stand a chance. No need, no need,” the master’s son barked a laugh, underlying each word with a hand smash against the table. Sometimes during the night, mugs of cider had substituted the cups of teas, a new head had peered inside the room to shake a little and disappear again, more money tingled on the table.

And somewhere between a laugh, a half-hearted threats, some sobs and fickler of gold, dawn broke outside the room. The master’s son stood up on unsteady feet, gently waving from one side to the other, a new pouch in hand, the leather suffocating the otherwise clear sound of metal.  
Victor rubbed his eyes, blinking away the sleep that for all the night had continued to creep under his eyelids as if the whole event had been nothing but a dream. But the mugs and empty pitchers were still there, overturned on the table, and the smell of alcohol lingered in the air. Yuuri lifted his head enough to show a foggy and skew smile of satisfaction before gravity sent his forehead right back against the wood. Little bubbles of saliva broke at the corners of his lips.

***

It took blades of full sunlight hitting Yuuri right on closed eyelids to pry him from the inebriation induced sleep. With a groan, he covered his face with both hands, turning his head from the source of light and slurring something Victor couldn’t understand; but where words failed, expressions and gesture didn’t.  
“You bought me,” he answered the unasked question. “I owe you my life.”  
From the fogged look Yuuri gave him, it didn’t seem to remember much about the past night, the middle between a plan and its conclusion lost to the nothing. He wondered how much Yuuri had had a real intention to acquire him from his old master and how instead things had changed on the go.

“Seung-Gil will not be happy. But I’ll deal with him later,” Yuuri muttered, voice still dense with post-hangover. The noises of the town raising already immersed in a new day filtered through the thin house walls. Most of them sounded new to Victor’s ears, the cacophony of metal against metal usually covering them.  
He had never truly appreciated the melody of iron and steel, as his father used to call it; mostly, he had never truly heard it.  
“Well, I guess I need to sign your freedom. Some kind of document,” Yuuri continued, fingers flexing in silent counting. Again, the scars a few centimetres lower magnetised Victor’s attention, too clear in pearl against tanned skin to be ignored. As Yuuri talked about freedom, they made him wonder if somebody had once done the same for him.  
“A waste of money,” he commented, the tone more snickering than expected, strange to his ears after all the years he had forced it down. What was with Yuuri’s proximity, Victor couldn’t explain in human words, but for sure he hadn’t felt so at home and safe in a long time; emotions he thought to have forgotten.  
“I could never buy another human being, remember?” Yuuri answered. He stood up from his chair and swung dangerously on the side. Victor was under him before he could fall, letting Yuuri dig his fingers into his back for support. Turning his head to the side so Yuuri couldn’t see the grimace of pain didn’t work. When Yuuri forced him to take his tunic off, the gasp he let out left little space to the imagination.

“It’s getting infected. Sit down, we need to take care of this.”

No surprise, since with all the happenings since the beating Victor had done everything but treating the wounds, letting adrenaline and stubbornness diluted the pain. Only a day had passed, but in Victor’s mind, the time seemed to have dilated to infinity, most of him wrapping around himself in the non-place that followed every killing since the shock of the first blood.

Victor couldn’t help but let out a soft moan of pleasure when Yuuri’s hands oily with a fresh lotion touched his skin, the gesture filled with care and kindness he never thought to know again in this lifetime. So different from the abrupt tending of wounds on the battlefield.  
With Yuuri things were different. Yuuri took his time in taking care of the cuts and bruises, warning each time his knife needed to cut the wound a bit deeper to force the infection out and bandaging his back with a clean cloth at the end. Tears spilt from Victor’s eyes out of all control. Soon, they turned into hiccups of a choked laugh at Yuuri’s evident worry and pathetic attempts to console him.  
“I’m fine,” he assured, unsure if it was truth or lie, drying his eyes with the back of his hand when the emotional storm had quieted down. To underline the concept, he jumped to his feet, clapped his hands once, and asked, “Well. What’s now?”

Yuuri pinched the bridge of his nose, massaging the temples. “Told you, I carve a letter of freedom. As soon as the room stops waving. Oh dear, I feel sick.”  
Not the time to finish the sentence, he had rushed away. Wet sounds, some groaning and an imprecation followed.  
“Worst idea ever,” was his comeback later.  
Victor frowned.  
“But worth it. Now, I need a pen and my sigil.”

Again, Victor’s body acted as having a mind of his own and his hand closing in grip around Yuuri’s forearm seemed almost to belong to someone else. But there it was, for a solid second before Victor realized the situation and flinched away, back into the boundaries he wasn’t supposed to overstep.  
Yuuri talked about freedom, but the word was emptied of meaning without a place to which return or someone to wait for him. If he looked back, Victor saw nothing but blood, ashes, and a whole village of unburied ghosts.  
“No need for them. I won’t mind staying. I can fight. A good guard is always needed when travelling.”

So much he insisted, Yuuri could nothing but accept.

***

The travel across the desert to the coast at the extreme East of the continent, saw the sun path in the sky shorten by the day, and the constellations changed their disposition at night. Seung-Gil parted way from them somewhere along the road.

They covered as much distance as they could at day, spent the night at the nearest town on the path, left before dawn could break. When a town wasn't near, Victor kept guard.  
Often Yuuri kept him company, his presence soothing all fears. Under the silver moonlight and before the reddish ashes, Victor told him about his childhood days at his father forge and how they saved his life, despite his disdain.  
From that to reveal his true vocation the step was short, tracing jewels scheme in the hard sand. His future might seem uncertain and he feared he wouldn’t have a goldsmith laboratory for a long time yet to come, maybe never, but the expression of awe and admiration onto Yuuri’s face when showed with the rings and little necklaces Victor carried with him - a memento of that fateful morning - warmed his heart.

There, in the middle of the desert, Yuuri hugged Victor and his nightmares away, letting him sob in the crook of his neck.

“My old master, I killed him.”  
“I supposed.”

Yuuri turned his arms to show the inside of the wrist, the old scars even more evident now that his skin had tanned a bit. The same pale shadows of a tormented past any captive had on his flesh. No doubt a similar pattern repeated on other parts of his body.  
“My home was across the sea where the sun rises,” Yuuri began, rubbing soothing circles on Victor’s back to chase the last remnants of dreams away and telling him how he was little more than a child when pirates kidnapped and sold him.  
“Are you returning home?”  
It must be nice to have a home to which return, the sureness someone you knew is still there to wait, things let the same notwithstanding the passing of time.  
“If I have the chance.”

Sometimes, chatting, Victor traced letters from home for Yuuri to learnt and Yuuri did the same, with pictures stylised to their most inner meaning. Some of them Victor carved onto Yuuri’s knife with impromptu instruments during one of their staying in the next village, Yuuri’s name, “courage”. And courage was the most thing Victor discovered to need, so far from home, in a sea of black hair and black eyes.  
He flinched in surprise when Yuuri stretched out a hand to poke at his crown, grabbing a fistful of hair, a daring gesture he never did before.  
“What was that for?” Victor lamented, scooting back from Yuuri’s hands.  
“Nothing, Please, forgive me. It’s just so …”  
Victor leaned forward in wait.  
“Fascinating.”

At the village, adults said he was a cute child and would become a handsome man, all predictions that had inevitably turned to the truth when he reached puberty and both boys and girls had swoon in delight at his passage. Their interest had never caught up with him, apart from the occasional flings, the walking down the river and butterfly kisses behind trees. Closing his eyes, he realized he couldn’t remember their faces or their voices, their compliments paling in the depth of Yuuri’s intense stare and all the flower crowns they gifted him disappearing in prowess to Yuuri’s messy attempts to braid his hair.

The more days passed, the more caring for each other became their normality, even if it meant putting up a fight before the other could hurt himself.

  
"I am fine."  
"You aren't," Victor refuted. Yuuri's forehead was burning against his lips, his eyes glassy and unfocused. "You need to rest."  
He forced Yuuri back down on an impromptu bed inside the carriage, blaming himself for not having noticed the first signs of sickness at the last town they passed. At least Yuuri had thought enough ahead to prepare some medicines for the travel.  
Pouring water on a piece of cloth and ignoring Yuuri's protests, there was only to hope they would be sufficient against the fever.  
"The carriage," Yuuri muttered, trying again to sit up and obtaining only to vomit the little broth Victor had managed to make him drink.  
After that, he gave up.  
"I can take care of this. I know the road."

The more they stood still in plain sight, the more they would attract unwanted attention and it was already a miracle bandits hadn't attacked them yet. He squinted his eyes, the dots at the horizon not at all of his liking.  
By midday the dots had grown up to the size of little men, enlarging by the minute. Little doubt was left on who they were, their intention and what crossing their path would mean. Victor secured his grip on the knife he bore at his side. He had assured and swore to protect Yuuri and that he would do. As for their belongings, the precious products meant to be sold across the sea, their horses could only carry a portion. Food and clothing came first. Money followed. Little space was left for the rest.

It hurt Victor’s heart seeing how small Yuuri seemed all curled up under the covers, his skin glistening with sweat and glowing in a sick pallor, little laments exiting his lips in the middle of his feverish dreams.  
“We stopped,” he mumbled, blinking in confusion as Victor coaxed him to sit enough to pass an arm around his back, one under his knees and pick him up. Yuuri yelped and hide his face into Victor’s chest.  
“Yes, a change of program.”

  
He could hear the bandits now, their shouts, clang of their sword, the noise of their horses' hoofs against the earth. All the more reason to hurry up.  
“What change?” Yuuri insisted, his whole body swinging to the side when Victor placed him on the saddle.  
“One to save our lives.”  
He hastened to saddle behind Yuuri, apologising in advance for the discomfort the ride would cause.  
There was only to hope the carriage left behind would be enough to satisfy them for another day.

They reached a hostel by dawn. Victor was so tired he had the impression to watch the whole scene from outside his body and yet not daring to sleep, not until he would be sure Yuuri would be in safe hands. Nor he left his side for a second.

In a couple days Yuuri’s fever went down, he could eat normally again and he was enough in strength to travel. They changed horses, bought a smaller carriage and pointed east.

There, with the first blue line of the sea appearing on the horizon, Victor wondered if Yuuri would ever accept to spend his life at his side.

A few days later he gathered enough courage to brush his lips against Yuuri’s mouth, his stomach fluttering in relief when Yuuri didn’t retreat in horror. He kissed him back, instead, after a moment of hesitation, so sweet and yet so inexperienced, only cementing Victor sureness about his feelings and intention.

  
***

The sea. Oh, how he missed the sea. The gulls' cries pierced right into his soul, the last link he still had with his past.  
“I never thought I would smell this again,” Yuuri said, coming to sit next to him at the docks, the ships for his travel sweetly lulling in the soft wind.  
Victor intertwined fingers with him in response, his breath hitching in his throat in fear Yuuri would retreat from the contact. Instead, Yuuri scooted nearer. He picked a rolled parchment from under his robes.  
“Your freedom. All signed up and with the proper sigils.”  
Victor saw Yuuri laying the document in his lap through tear-filled* eyes, them scorching hot on his cheeks and falling round onto the paper.  
“I thought I was more important than this,” he exclaimed to the air, jerking away from Yuuri’s touch. “How little you think of me. I’m disappointed.”  
“I thought you wanted to be free.”  
“Wasn’t I already? I suppose there isn’t a place for me on that ship.”  
“Victor ...” The note of apology in Yuuri’s voice hurt, cut deep with the awareness he had been nothing but something to dispose of when the right time came.

His mama said a person can’t chase love, for no mortal foot can run so fast; wise advice, but of all wise advice Victor had heard in his lifetime, he had managed to follow none. Now there he was, alone at the uttermost extreme of the known lands, with apparently a universe of possibilities and yet no place to go. No use in buying a passage onto Yuuri’s ship, when the man had only talked about freedom and never about a future together. Even a stubborn person like Victor knew when it was time to stop.  
All he could do was to retrace his steps all the way to where everything had begun, open a new forge, pretend nothing in the last years had happened.  
He sold his jewels for a horse and a sachet of money. They were only objects, after all, and they brought him nothing but pain. The gold had never seemed so dull.

***

If only Yuuri’s voice could stop to torment him. Groaning, Victor pried one eye open in the room he rented for the night.  
Yuuri’s face floated before him. An illusion made by lights and shadows, no doubt. It would only take to flicker on a candle to make it disappear.  
The wax burnt Victor’s fingers. Yuuri was still there, an ivory shape in an overall dark room.  
“Yuuri? What are you doing here?” Victor said, eventually. Not exactly the best welcoming sentence, but he believed Yuuri already on a ship. “Your ship?”  
“They discovered a hole. One week more of maintenance.”  
“Why didn’t you change passage?”  
Yuuri shrugged, rummaging in his sleeves. “I took it as a sign I still had time to give you this.”  
There was little doubt what the rolled paper, closed with a wax sigil, was; yet Victor forced himself to accept it. Only to throw it to the other side of the room a moment later.  
“Victor!”  
“I told you. I don’t want your freedom document.”  
“But you need it. Please, trust me. It will make your travel safer.”  
As he spoke, he retrieved the rolled paper, added another, which Victor supposed must be some kind of travel paperwork, and handed all to him, with the air of someone willing to stay there all night and all the day after, until he wouldn’t accept them.  
Maybe he cared for him more than his words gave it away.  
“It’s been a long way,” he commented, the documents now in his lap. “I … why do you care so much?”  
“Why?” Yuuri stuttered. “Because … because you’re my Victor.”  
There, again, such boldness and the way Yuuri kept surprising him. He could cover his mouth with his hands in disbelief all he wanted, the words had already been pronounced.  
“Your Victor,” Victor murmured, savouring the taste it had. Yuuri diverted his gaze.  
“Sorry, that came out wrong.”

“No,” He cupped Yuuri’s cheek to force him to look him in the eyes. “I like it.”  
“You do?”  
Victor hadn’t chuckled in years, apart from the false smiles to ingratiates some customers at the marketplace, yet it seemed the perfect answer for the moment. In the end, after all, doubts and day-dreaming and planning, Yuuri had been more straightforward than him.  
“Though I am used to another kind of marriage proposal.”  
Yuuri stilled this time his turn to break into a small laugh, the smile the nicest thing Victor had ever seen. The moment of hilarity lasted only the space of a breath.  
“My country is nothing like you are used to,” Yuuri began, a frown already traversing his forehead.  
“I can adapt,” Victor stopped him from saying anything else. He rubbed his thumbs against Yuuri’s wrist as if he could cancel the scars with the gesture. Yuuri hands were still a mystery in his, so soft and yet so strong. “Your men still carry swords and your women still wear jewels, I suppose.”  
“Yes, of course. Yes, you are right. I will tell you all about it. I will prepare for you.”  
For a moment Victor was tempted to close Yuuri’s mouth and his blabbering with a kiss. But that would have been for another day.  
He kissed Yuuri’s knuckles instead, pressing the bundle against his lips with the uttermost devotion.  
“No need. I love surprises.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic had agonized in my folder for more than a year, because I felt it wasn't enough. Now I don't care. A year ago I was scanning the depths of the internet to make everything as accurate as possible; now I realized there's more to a story than historical accuracy. I still believe the devil is in the details, but between writing freely and getting stuck every two words, I prefer the first option. I think people will forgive me if I messed up a bit the Kievan Rus and the Golden Horde and stuff. 
> 
> It's not-betated because when I write dark, I write dark, and this time I didn't found anyone available.  
This story was a bit like coming back home for me too, to when I wrote short and angsty. This is how I used to write, how i wish to write, in wide brush-strokes.  
Let me tell you, it was nice.


End file.
